Hey Folks!
Another successful Wednesday had come and gone and now I can start preparing for NEXT Wednesday. When I step back from my job I realize that I have been living a weird alternate version of life compared to everybody else where time is measured by weeks. Like sands through the hour glass and all of that crap, I forge on week after week, new release by new release, on down through the decades. Just when I can let go of another bout of anxiety as to whether I’ve ordered enough books or pulled everyone’s orders properly, I am immediately bound up by the anxiety of next week’s releases. If I let my attention drift for but one moment I can lose track of where and when I am operating or what little efforts have to be made to keep the store moving forward. I had a system in place while I was Steve’s Number One and it has been an interesting experience trying to forge ahead without Steve and set a new schedule in place in order to get everything done. Oh, well, everything has been running pretty smoothly all things considered, but I just wanted to let you know that I am always looking for ways to improve my performance in order to serve y’all better.
Nothing much new to report on the comic book front this week. I can assure everyone that the final kinks have been worked in regards to setting up an account with Penguin Random House. They have been a dream to work with so far and the only problems I’ve had can be attributed to my own foolish mistakes. For instance, I had to turn in a form stating that I am purchasing product at wholesale in order to sell it for retail and I left my vendor’s number off the form in a rush to get it turned in. Of course, I had to resubmit it in order to assure my tax exempt status with the distributor, but it was all ironed very quickly and with no muss or fuss. I was wrong about a previous assumption I had made about PRH. I was under the impression that they had already been distributing Marvel trades to the book store market for years and so I was confused when I couldn’t find any Marvel titles on their ordering website. It runs out that ANOTHER distributor peddled Marvel product to the bookstore trade which was kind of disappointing as I was hoping that they would be able to help me get the Marvel trades restocked in the store as so many items are currently on backorder with Diamond. The good news? PRH does handle various other publishers (including D.C. Comics) for the bookstores and so in the next couple of weeks I have to get to work making lists of trades and hard covers that I haven’t been able to get restocked from Diamond or Lunar. I’ll try to post lists of restocked items when they start showing up. Please take a look at my “Back in Stock” section of the weekly shipping list as that as where they will probably be listed.
When I took over the store back in January one of the things at the top of my “To-Do” list was the vacating of the thousands of old non-sport card singles that have been gathering dust in various out of the way spots in the store for years. I was basically gonna see if I could take them out to Hillman’s place and spend a fun couple of hours burning them all to ash in his aunt’s burn barrels…lol. I have been informed, however, that there is apparently a resurgent interest in these old cards, so, while I am busy fixing up the joint, I am going to give everyone a final opportunity to peruse and purchase these old relics. Jake and I were working on getting some card product ready to put out on the counters yesterday and I have currently put out a couple of monster boxes of non sport singles on the counter. To be honest, I left the job to Jake so I can’t sit here and list every set that is represented in these boxes, but I can assure you that there are far more cards ready tog out then what is currently part of the display. Anyway, I know there are a variety of Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars, art cards, and more in the boxes. I will be charging 15 cents a card, 10 for a dollar, or $7.50 for a hundred. So, if you are into this sort of thing, please check them out during your next visit!
I must once again also beg your forgiveness for the mess that I am going to be kicking up in the next couple of weeks in the store. I have decided that for the next phase of renovations I am going to start painting the old wooden racks as well as cleaning out the showcase (which just got a new glass top!) and painting it so that I can get the books that used to be up on the wall out on display again. Jake assures me that he is a wizard at painting so I do believe that I am going to try and set up a small work area for the two of us to begin giving those old racks new life with a fresh paint job. So if you see a working mess when you come in then please look politely away and pretend that I haven’t just clogged up all of my new and beautiful “free space” in the store with a big and messy project!
That’s it for me this week…I really need to get this stuff posted so that I have an hour or two to work on the showcase before next week’s new D.C. books show up from FedEx this afternoon. I will most likely be away from my desk this afternoon, so if you message me it may be a minute before I get back to you. I hope everyone enjoys this beautiful weather and has a great weekend!
Eddie